United Kingdom opposition Conservative Member of Parliament for
Buckinham, John Bercow told the British government to refer the
Burmese military junta to the International Criminal Court for
using rape as a weapon of war, extra-judicial killings, compulsory
relocation, forced labour, the use of child soldiers and human
minesweepers, and the daily destruction of rural villages, especially
in eastern Burma.
He described the acts of the dictatorship as
"all part of the cocktail of barbarity that has disfigured
that beautiful but long-suffering part of the world."
Excerpts of the speech:
On 19 June, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate and leader of Burma's
democracy movement, will have spent nine years and 238 days in
detention and she will celebrate, if that word can be used without
absurdity, her birthday. She has long ceased contact with members
of her family and representatives of the international community.
Her post is intercepted, her telephone is unavailable for her
regular use, and much-needed medical treatment has been denied.
Her situation is serious indeed.
When we talk about abuse of human rights, we think often of Iraq
under Saddam Hussein, Sudan under al-Bashir, and Zimbabwe under
Robert Mugabe. We should think of Burma more readily than we do,
because there is no doubt that the military junta that rules Burma
and has continued to flout its people's views is one of the most
savage military dictatorships to be found in the world. The record
is well established, the documentation has been provided and the
evidence has been regularly collated, but let the argument be
reiterated so that we are clear and so that outside observers
unfamiliar with the historical record are in the know.
Rape as a weapon of war, extra-judicial killings, compulsory relocation,
forced labour, the use of child soldiers and human minesweepers,
and the daily destruction of rural villages, especially in eastern
Burma, are all part of the cocktail of barbarity that has disfigured
that beautiful but long-suffering part of the world. The use of
child soldiers in Burma is on a scale proportionately greater
than in any country in the world.
The suffering is immense. The situation in Burma is not simply
a matter of historical events about which there is continuing
argument. The crisis is real, the atrocities continue, the pain
is now. In the past 12 months or so, there have been continual
attacks by the Burma army-the Tatmadaw-on the Karen, the Karenni,
the Shan and the Chin people, to name but four examples of ethnic
nationals targeted, vilified, attacked, maimed, disfigured, raped
and murdered on the deliberate say-so of the so-called State Peace
and Development Council, the name of the ruling regime.
It is salutary to note that, on the advice of an American public
relations company, I believe, the governing body of Burma changed
its name from the State Law and Order Restoration Council-otherwise
and perhaps more fittingly known by the acronym SLORC-to the State
Peace and Development Council.
When I was a young boy first taking an interest in politics, I
asked my father what I thought was a simple but valid question.
"Dad," I asked, for I regarded him as the fount of all
knowledge and wisdom, "Why, given its reputation for human
rights abuses, is the German Democratic Republic so called?"
He sagely replied, "Ah, son, it is called the German Democratic
Republic precisely because it isn't."
There is a sense in which that is true in respect of the Burmese
Government. Military offensives, not only against army opponents
of the regime but against unarmed, innocent and non-political
civilians, are a fact of life. We are talking about a 100,000-strong
army attacking villages.
Visiting the Thai-Burmese border last year, courtesy of Christian
Solidarity Worldwide, was one of the most harrowing experiences
of my life. I met parents who spontaneously volunteered to me
that they had seen their children shot dead in front of them.
Similarly, I met children who told me spontaneously that they
had seen their parents shot dead in front of them. That is the
scale of the savagery and wanton destruction of which the Government
of Burma are guilty.
The sources of evidence are many, respected and compelling: they
include the United States State Department, the United Nations,
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Christian Solidarity
Worldwide, the Free Burma Rangers, the International Labour Organisation,
the Karen Human Rights Organisation and the Shan Human Rights
Foundation. The evidence is all on the record and documented,
and the papers have been provided. Governments throughout the
European Union and in north America and UN member states have
been told of what is happening in Burma. I believe that the abuse
of human rights in Burma is the most shameful and under-reported
such abuse to be found anywhere in the world.
New evidence has recently been provided by Mr. Guy Horton, the
author of a new report, which he calls "Dying Alive: A Legal
Assessment of Human Rights Violations in Burma". Mr. Horton,
who has presented the evidence in Washington and will shortly
do so at a press conference in London, argues that the Government
of Burma are guilty of human rights violations that contravene
three important protocols and public declarations. He argues,
that the regime is guilty of, first, crimes against humanity under
article 7 of the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court
and, secondly, breaching common article 3 of the convention on
refugees. He concludes, that in addition to those crimes against
humanity and war crimes, the Government of Burma are guilty of
attempted genocide under the convention on the prevention and
punishment of the crime of genocide. That is an extremely serious
charge. My understanding-the Minister will tell me if I am wrong-is
that the British Government are not currently persuaded that the
evidence constitutes proof. I hope that they will be prepared
to look at that further when they have the chance to study the
detailed report.
There is also serious concern about reports in the past few months
of what circumstantial evidence suggests was either a chemical
or a poisoned-weapons attack on an army resistance camp in Karenni
state. Independent medical examinations of residents of that camp
have led to the conclusion that have symptoms of what appears
to be illness resulting from a chemical or poison weapons attack.
We have heard about the explosion of shells, a sinister, disgusting
yellow vapour, and the consequences for the people in the camp
of severe irritation to the eyes, damage to the lungs, a marked
deterioration in the muscles and a period of prolonged weight
loss, to name but four of the symptoms. We have also heard testimony
from army deserters that they were instructed by their controllers
in the Tatmadaw to carry boxes containing poison weapons. It is
incumbent on the British Government proactively to consider the
evidence and either satisfy themselves that it is compelling and
that referrals of identifiable suspects to the International Criminal
Court should take place forthwith, or decide that that they are
not so satisfied, in which case the Minister has a responsibility
on behalf of the Government clearly and openly to explain to the
House why they are not persuaded by what appears to be compelling
evidence.
Let us, briefly look at the overview of the position in Burma.
I have deliberately not subjected the Chamber to a history lesson
about what has happened in that country. Many people present will
be familiar of the brutality of the regime over the past four
and a bit decades. They know only too well that the results of
the 1990 elections, in which the National League for Democracy
was manifestly victorious, were ignored by the Government, who
are absolutely hellbent on retaining the aggressive and intimidating
power of the military component of the regime.
There were a few cursory and tokenistic releases of prisoners
from jails not long ago, which were trumpeted by the regime and
its naive or malign agents as constituting evidence of a dramatic
march towards the democratic process on the part of the regime.
Of course, they were nothing of the sort. The truth is that there
are still between 1,300 and 1,400 political prisoners or prisoners
of conscience incarcerated in varying conditions of severity and
deprivation in Burma's jails. The offices of the National League
for Democracy remain shut and there is not the slightest sign
of the release of one of the heroines of the struggle for freedom,
justice and democracy in the world today, Aung San Suu Kyi.
The regime, typical of authoritarian and, worse still, totalitarian
regimes, spends a vast proportion of its national budget on the
military, but spends, I believe, 19p a year per person on the
health of the people. In those circumstances, it is not surprising
that one in 10 children in Burma does not survive beyond the age
of five. That is an horrendous state of affairs.
When I think about the reports of domestic organisations on the
ground whose representatives I was privileged to meet last year,
I think that we cannot look the other way and choose to think
of and talk about something else. The Karen Women's Organisation's
2004 report "Shattering Silences" and the Shan Human
Rights Foundation's May 2002 report "Licence to Rape"
tell us about premeditated attacks on innocent people by the representatives
of the army, which are all calculated to keep people down, to
deny them protection and to send a message to anyone who might
be thinking of arguing against the regime that they should not
consider doing so.
The Burmese people's plight is extremely serious. I do not think
that that is be a matter of disagreement in this Chamber. The
question is: what do we do to improve the situation? Can the Government,
unilaterally, multilaterally or supranationally, take any action
that would alleviate the plight of the people of Burma, in particular
the long-suffering ethnic nationals, and offer the prospect of
relief and progress in the future?
There are steps that can be taken. First, I appeal to the Minister
to confirm that the Government will actively investigate the Horton
allegations, if I may describe them so. Will he confirm that the
Government will examine, painstakingly and in detail, the allegations
of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide? Secondly,
will they examine the particular accusation made public by Christian
Solidarity Worldwide of an attempted chemical or poison weapons
attack on the Karenni army resistance camp?
